If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

In general they come across as over the top and appeal to the childish notion that bigger is in some way better. I don't play video games much at all so I don't have any need for much memory, let alone independent graphics memory.
I'm much more concerned about whether the hardware has free drivers and that it should be relatively easy to put new hardware in when I feel like it. Actually, Alienware is pretty good for the latter but I still don't see the point in getting every single piece of hardware at the top-end when I just don't need it.
In terms of what you get for your money, Alienware isn't all that expensive, but it comes coupled with being someone who owns an Alienware computer which has issues for me when it comes to going out in public.

I don't do much gaming either. The most intense thing I do with my HP Pavilion DV2000Z is to play Live (3-D) Billiards. I'll never buy Voodoo or Alienware but certainly I'm going to get an ABS again eventually. Their desktops start at $1,099 which is the lowest price of those three. The cheapest Alienware is $1,299. The cheapest Voodoo is $2,800. So I'm never getting Alienware or Voodoo. And I told everybody about my family's experience with that ABS, and that is a big factor in my mind: reliability and expandability.

All the links point to individual componants on Newegg, where do you think it comes from?

I'm actually in the UK, so I shop at Scan, OcUK and Dabs, but this is a parts list for someone in America. I posted it for easy comparison with the price of other systems from companies that do nothing more than assemble and add on a percentage.

David is the custom builder in question. There's no point paying someone to do it if you know how to use a screwdriver yourself.
Not that he's too great with a soldering iron, it tends to end up burning his wrist a lot.

Well, I'd trust them to get the boxes from the warehouse to me (if I lived in America), but not necessarily to open them, mess around with my hardware and stick it all together. There are many things you can't check a system builder has done well, without undoing the works he's done to see, but then even if he has done it well, you'd have to redo it.

For example, how do I know that they can apply thermal paste to a CPU properly? A lot of people just put a huge dollop in the middle (usually far too much), then don't bother to spread it round evenly, and just put the heatsink on top. I, on the other hand, carefully apply a small (and correct) amount of Arctic Silver 5, spread it thinly, evenly, carefully over the CPU, place the heatsink on top, rotate it a little in either direction, then fix it in place. That way I know it's been done correctly, and with possibly the best thermal compound there is.

Then there's cable management. These are big companies that must have to build many PC's every day. Their builders aren't going to bother arranging the cables in a logical fashion and keeping them out of the way of the airflow, no, they're just going to hook everything up and move onto PC #612 of the day. If I order the componants myself then I have precisely 1 PC to build, which means I can spend a lot more time building it so that I know it's been made well.

There are many other advantages aswell, such as picking the exact componants I want for the computer (especially including aftermarket coolers and power supply units which system builders never give you a choice about (that I've seen)).

Also, the price of the operating system isn't automatically tacked on, which means you can run whatever operating system you want, and possibly re-use a copy of XP you already have. But more importantly, it means you get a PC without the sorry excuse for an operating system, Vista, on it.

Well, I'd trust them to get the boxes from the warehouse to me (if I lived in America), but not necessarily to open them, mess around with my hardware and stick it all together. There are many things you can't check a system builder has done well, without undoing the works he's done to see, but then even if he has done it well, you'd have to redo it.
Then there's cable management. These are big companies that must have to build many PC's every day. Their builders aren't going to bother arranging the cables in a logical fashion and keeping them out of the way of the airflow, no, they're just going to hook everything up and move onto PC #612 of the day. If I order the componants myself then I have precisely 1 PC to build, which means I can spend a lot more time building it so that I know it's been made well.

Just do an image search for "ABS Desktops" and look at the models with the windows n the sides. They're always neat.

Oh, they are. The ABS we had was braided all in to one cable, nice and neat. However ours isn't as neat anymore because over the time we've been in it so many times upgrading, and like I mentioned before we took the sound card out so now there is a cable or two not connected to anything. Also where there's a bay for the extra floppy disk drive or any of the four available CD-ROM drive bays the cables leave the connectors right there in the correct spot for easy adding of hard drives, CD drives, or floppy disk drives. Ours has four bays for RAM, two of which were occupied when it was new, and we put one stick in at one point and another stick in at another point. So, yes, ABS is very careful about how they design and configure their products.

Maybe sometime I can take a picture of the inside of ours, the only reason is it's at my grandfather's and I usually have no reason to take a camera there.

M9700

I built my first personal computer myself - after bothering my mom for use of hers for about 5 years. The experience was good, and I built myself a pretty decent multi-use machine. It lasted a while (Pentium 4 2.6 GHz, 1 GB DDR, NVidia 5900FX - all the "just got replaced as bleeding edge" stuff at the time) but I decided I wanted more when I went away to college - specifically more power in laptop form. I went with Alienware's m9700 (Turion64 @ 2.2GHz, 2 GB DDR, NVidia 7900) and I am generally happy.

As to the home-built/manufactured debate - there are a few situations where I disagree with the consensus (you're all Linux elitists anyway). The first is obviously: Laptops. No further discussion needed. The second is another situation I was in: what about my friend who asked me to build him a box for light gaming. He had no desire to learn about it, just heard that customs are cheaper and knew I was more than capable. But I didn't want to get stuck making the wrong hardware choices (future-guarding vs economy budget) nor did I want to feel the obligation to fix his box when the **** hits the fan (which it will - since you fanboys are already sneering at me for being OK with running Windows). A warranty - no matter how crappy their tech supports are reported to be - is a powerful factor.

which it will - since you fanboys are already sneering at me for being OK with running Windows

We are... If anything, grab a copy of OSx or Fedora&Cedega, all Unix based OSs are better than the rest, easier to maintain, mostly virus free(only 14 ever for linux, and none work nowadays.), etc.
Dont assume that because we dont like MS, and that we think the OS is **** in almost every way, dont think that we think we are better than you. Hell, you probabally deserve some sort of award for putting up with it this long.

Oh and im only suggesting OSx because alot of games install without ports to it. I actually hate Apple because of their current marketing scheme.

Really, you built your first computer? That is a huge accomplishment! Two thumbs up!

However, there is no "debate" between custom made and factory made computers (at least not in this thread!); I'm trying to compare the three most powerful and expensive brands. Although you did say you were on Alienware's side and voted for it, so thank you for not going TOO off topic.

Oh, how do you install OSx on something other than a Mac, even if it's a custom made computer? I always wondered about that; they have a way to have Windows on a Mac, but not vise versa.

I hate the Mac OS too. In fact I recall that you made a post in the thread I started about PCs vs Macs.

Edit:

The computer that I talk about most around this forum is my HP Pavilion DV2000Z. It's my first computer that's actually mine. I also mention that I had been using my sister's IBM ThinkPad 600X, which she never used, and now that I saved up and bought my own the ThinkPad is back in storage again....

Building your own PC isnt that hard a job. I built my first PC out of the need to get a class machine at half the cost.

What I ended up with was a machine that had (at the time top spec) 128MB SDRAM on an AMD 650Mhz Gigabyte Mobo, Nvidia Video, 80Gig HDD and it cost me nearly £800 at the time when a similar spec machine was selling for £1,499 in the shops and it didnt come with an operating system which was an extra £249 on top.

Now you can pick up pre-build junker for as little as £399 all inc. (Abt $800 [$791.552 on yahoo exchange] at current exchange rates because the dollar is so weak)

Building your own is by far the better option as you get exactly what you pay for as oposed to buying a box that you dont know how its been built. Its like going to buy a HiFi system, you either buy a prebuilt box or buy seperates, me, I prefer seperates because it represents better value, quality of build and one component breaks, you replcae that component, midi and micro system when they break, you chuck the whole thing out and buy another... no economy other than the manufacturer get his pockets lined with your dollar...

Apply the same principle to computers and pre built systems and you will very quickly see the benefits of BYO over PBS.

Last edited by \\.\; 06-18-2007 at 04:42 AM.

STOP using $ prefix on JavaScript variable names...
Please remember to wrap any code you have in forum tags:- [CODE]...[/CODE] [HTML]...[/HTML] [PHP]...[/PHP]If you can't think outside the box, you will be trapped forever with no escape...